Chris's Crime Forum

Women seek answers to missing person cases along B.C. road

44 females have disappeared along B.C. highway

Two native women who organized a cross-country walk last year to get justice for murdered and missing women are sounding a call to action for those who disappeared along the Highway of Tears in northern B.C.

Gladys Radek and Bernice Williams-Poitras, co-founders of Walk4Justice, were in Calgary on Thursday to speak at the Strengthening the Spirit annual conference.

"We're still together and we're still fighting the cause for far too many missing and murdered women across the country," said Radek, whose niece, Tamara Lynn Chipman, went missing along Highway 16 in September 2005.

"She is one of far too many,"Radek said, noting her research shows 44 women have gone missing from the same stretch of highway in the past 20 years.

RCMP are officially probing the murders or disappearances of 18 young women who went missing or were killed along the route--dubbed the Highway of Tears by families -- since 1969. The budget for the police investigation was boosted in January to $3.6 million, up from $2.1 million.

Among the missing is Nicole Hoar, 25, of Red Deer, who disappeared in June 2002 while hitchhiking from Prince George to Smithers, B.C., to pay her sister a surprise visit. Many of the other missing woman are native.

"The Highway of Tears was a very small part of this picture,"Radek said, noting there are many other unsolved cases involving native women.

Strengthening the Spirit, a committee made up primarily of native service providers, was formed seven years ago to make sure services are available to meet the needs of natives affected by domestic, sexual and partner violence.

This year's conference, called High-way to Hope, focused on ending violence against aboriginal women.

link

Police confirm search is for missing Albertan

Nicole Hoar

The RCMP confirmed today that their search of a rural Prince George property is related to the 2002 disappearance of Nicole Hoar, who was 25 when she vanished along Highway 16 while working as a tree planter.

Earlier, the father of a woman who went missing on the "Highway of Tears" has told a media outlet that the RCMP have contacted him regarding his daughter's case, which may now be linked to a convicted murderer.

Jack Hoar told opinion250.com, an online news outlet based in Prince George, that the RCMP told him it may have located the remains of his daughter Nicole Hoar, however, no confirmation has yet been made.

“We will just sit tight and wait and see” Hoar said.

“Although it would be good to have closure.”

Nicole vanished near Prince George along Highway 16 while working as a tree planter. She is one of 18 women and girls who went missing along the infamous "Highway of Tears" since 1990.

The RCMP are occupying five acres of a property near Prince George to investigate what they are calling a "historical homicide."

A team of investigators has been searching a rural area surrounding 31645 Pinewood Road in the District of Isle Pierre for several days, said RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Annie Linteau.

The property surrounds a mobile home, which will not be searched, said Linteau.

"We'll be searching everything in its entirety, except the home," she said.

"We have no information that would suggest the owner of the property is involved in this investigation."

However, Linteau did say that a previous owner of the property is a "person of interest" in the case and that the person is known to police.

The property in question was once owned by convicted murderer Leland Vincent Switzer.

In 2005 Switzer was found guilty for the second-degree murder of his brother Irvin on June 23, 2002 after a lifelong feud between the two.

The murder occurred two days after Nicole went missing.

Switzer claimed self defence in the case, including his belief that Irvin had AIDS and would pass the disease on to Switzer during an altercation.

At age 16, according to a court document, his mother made him promise her that he wouldn't kill Irvin. A month before he did, he asked his mother if he could take back his promise.

"I am satisfied in the end that animosity got the better of the accused and he shot his brother," stated the judge in his reasons for judgement, who added he believed Switzer to be psychotic during the time leading up to the murder.

Switzer was then sentenced to life in prison where he remains.

Linteau could not release any names or other details regarding the investigation but said the RCMP was "confident [the person of interest] is not a threat to the public" and that "we know where this person is."

Switzer has a long criminal record beyond the murder conviction. In the past decade he has been found guilty of mischief under $5,000, numerous assaults, failing to appear in court, wilfully resisting or obstructing a peace officer, and a number of driving offences.

Linteau would also not comment on whether the police investigation is related to the so-called "Highway of Tears."

Initially, the "Highway of Tears" investigation focused on Highway 16, a desolate two-lane highway running from Prince Rupert to Prince George and on to Edmonton.

Police later expanded the geographical scope to include unsolved cases along other major highways in B.C., including those leading to Hudson's Hope, Kamloops, Merritt, 100 Mile House, and extending as far as Hinton, Alta.



http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Search+missing+Albertan+RCMP/1939530/story.html

Its about time they got some kind of lead,I am so curious about this Switzer guy.When I am done catching up on the forum here,I am going to research him.Thanks Doreen!

Police are searching a second location in Prince George, B.C., as part of an investigation into the disappearance of tree planter Nicole Hoar, 25, who went missing from the area in 2002.

Police say the search has grown beyond a rural property west of Prince George, where investigators are looking for Hoar's body. Police said they're also searching an unauthorized dumping site used by local residents, about killometre northwest of the original search area.

Police stressed they were not expecting to find remains at the second location, but said they could find discarded items of interest. Police are focusing their efforts on an abandoned yellow pickup truck, which they say will be seized and examined.

RCMP investigators obtained a warrant this week to search a two-hectare property once owned by Leland Vincent Switzer. A man by the same name was convicted of shooting his brother to death two days after Hoar disappeared, but it is not clear whether they are the same person.

PRINCE GEORGE, B.C.–The Mounties are expanding the area where they are looking for the remains of 25-year-old tree planter Nicole Hoar, who disappeared near Prince George, B.C., seven years ago.

RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Annie Linteau said yesterday the search has grown beyond the property west of the northern B.C. city where officers were working beneath three black tents.

Officers were at an unofficial community dump about one kilometre northwest of the original search area looking for possible items related to the Hoar case. Police also planned on seizing an abandoned yellow pickup truck at the site.

Hoar, from Red Deer, Alta., disappeared June 21, 2002, while hitch-hiking along Highway 16 west of Prince George, on her way to visit her sister in Smithers, B.C.

RCMP investigators obtained a warrant this week to search a two-hectare property once owned by convicted murderer Leland Vincent Switzer, who shot his brother dead two days after Hoar disappeared.

Switzer's former defence lawyer said an investigator interviewed him about Hoar in 2004. Switzer was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of his brother in 2005 and sentenced to life in prison. He sold the acreage in 2006.


Police have brought in excavating equipment and a geological expert who is using a ground-penetrating radar "that measures anomalies, or defects, in the ground," Linteau said. "He can assist us in determining which areas should be looked at further."

At least nine women, most of them aboriginal, vanished or were killed along the highway – dubbed the Highway of Tears – since 1990.

Investigators Here Following Up Tips on Nicole Hoar Case

Prince George, B.C. - While the RCMP forensic team has left the Pinewood Road property near Isle Pierre that was the subject of four days of searching for evidence in the disappearance of Nicole Hoar, there are still nearly a dozen E-Pana investigators in Prince George following up on tips.
“We have received more than a hundred tips” says Corporal Annie Linteau. She says the “E-Pana” investigators who are still here are working with the two “E-Pana” officers who have been stationed here for more than a year.
Working out of the North District RCMP office, the two examine tips and all missing persons reports to see if they should become part of the investigation of disappearances and deaths of 18 women.
The four day search was expanded to include an unauthorized dump north west of the 5 acre residential site. At that dump, investigators examined a yellow pick up truck. “We examined the vehicle for evidence and have the VIN, but the ownership of that vehicle has not been established yet” says Linteau.
Investigators have not yet said if they have found any evidence or human remains on the 5 acre parcel. They have also not yet indicated if they have a name to put to the description of a man who may have more information on Nicole Hoar’s whereabouts after she was last spotted at the Mr. G’s on Gauthier Road on June 21st of 2002. That man is described as having been in his 50’s at the time of Nicole’s disappearance. He is said to have had a scruffy appearance, long dark hair, a thin face, sunken eyes and a jagged scar on the left side of his neck.

http://www.opinion250.com/blog/view/13874/1/investigators++here+following+up++tips++on++nicole+hoar++case